Zoo Zoo Boom wrote:
One of the problems the club has had is the development of young players - they get the pick of the youngsters in west yorks yet seldom do any progress to the standard we need - when was the last time the club produced a SL standard half back, hooker or loose forward? Butterill has been around youth development at Leeds for years and as such has to shoulder some of the blame for this.
Part of the stagnation of the team in recent years is down to the lack of youth development - things need to change surely?
Butterill does his job and does it extremely well, players regularly leave our scholorship regarded as among the best players in the country, the start of this season has been an outliner, because throughout his tenure his teams have beat everybody convincingly and the players have looked very good doing it. An example that springs to mind is Brad Martin, iv rarley seen a better 2nd row prospect coming out of Scholorship, he was exceptional, got to academy and just didnt kick on atall.
The problems with development have started once they leave Butterill and get to Academy and first team level imo, some of our players look more intelligent rugby players at 16 than they do at 18 and god knows what goes on with our S+C at Academy level.
Some of the time its not the clubs fault, as simple as this sounds, at times players just dont have the growth spurts needed, the pack containing Hird, Parsons, Watten, Atkinson, Gibbons, Wallace were brilliant at Scholorship, big and full of Skill, but 3 seasons later, none of them look much taller than they did at 16, certainly not compared to the players they played against at 16, Parsons has had a long term injury...Injury also has a bearing, we couldnt really have worse luck, if our best Juniors arnt injury prone then they're not a proper Leeds Junior.